for ($@)

[szabgab]

In a code I am maintainng it sais

eval {

 # bla bla
};
for ($@) {
   print '$@';
}

Is this for($@) some expression I don't know or should I just replace if with if($@) ?

[hardburn]

That particular use of for sets the $_ to whatever was in $@. The code as presented doesn't do anything useful with $_, so you can replace it with if($@). The for expression is normally a looping construct, but it isn't be used that way here.

The single quotes around $@ are also probably incorrect. You'll need double quotes so you can print out the value of $@. Or just leave them off entirely and Perl will do the Right Thing in this case.

[holli]

see perlvar:

The Perl syntax error message from the last eval() operator. If $@ is the null string, the last eval() parsed and executed correctly (although the operations you invoked may have failed in the normal fashion). (Mnemonic: Where was the syntax error ``at''?) Warning messages are not collected in this variable. You can, however, set up a routine to process warnings by setting $SIG{__WARN__} as described below. Also see Error Indicators.

In that sense, $@ is a scalar and therefore, looping about a scalar makes no sense and you can replace that code with:

print $@ if $@;

[edoc]

FWIW..

This looks to me like a first revision which was intended to be developed further. As mentioned by hardburn the for ($@) sets $_ to the value of $@. Why would we want to do that? So we could then do something like:

eval {

 # bla bla
};
for ($@) {
   /NOT FOUND/ && do { 
                      print 'Where'd I put that?';
                      last;
                     };
   print 'Na,ah. Not for you!' if /FORBIDDEN/;
}

Each of those is testing the string value of $@

[Beechbone]

If you change the for() to if() you'll cange the semantics. As $@ is always one scalar value (just like all scalar variables) the for($@) will always be executed once, regardless of the value of $@. So

for ($@) {
  print $@;
}

is the same as:

print $@;

But I'd say the original semantics was wrong, so you'd better use the if(). I'd even suggest you use if (my $e = $@) {... to get rid of some nasty side-effects like $@ getting cleared by some sub you call inside your if-block...